WANTS FREEDOM FROM THE PRESS

The Mail

NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED
November 1, 1971

To the Editors of the Crimson:

In a WHRB broadcast earlier this week. I stated that a new issue had emerged in this City Council campaign: the right of an individual to Freedom From the Press. The Crimson's coverage of my candidacy in Friday's issue only reinforces what I said on WHRB.

I spent nearly an hour with J. Anthony Day of the Crimson staff discussing this city, but when his story appeared, it was merely a rehash of a series of libelous statements which were printed by the Phoenix, as though reprinting bullshit gives it added veracity.

The Phoenix printed several snide remarks attributed to an alleged former staff aide of mine, an aide they haven't named and I have yet to know. The Crimson refers to "the number of theories surrounding Steve Nelson's abrasiveness and apparent lack of concern for winning votes," and then neatly adds that these theories "all conclude more or less in the same way as his former campaign worker's."

Now I want to know this. What theories? State them. Whose theories? Name them. Which conclusions? Elaborate on them. And one more thing. Why doesn't anybody ask me about my theories?

Well, the fact is that my abrasiveness is an expression of anger and pain, because in the course of this campaign I've seen more smugness, more hypocrisy, more dogshit, all in the name of liberalism and radicalism, and it makes me sick. All along I'd thought I was a "radiclib" in good standing, but now I've been radicalized, truly radicalized, because for all their easy talk, who among the liberal radical left politics ever showed any concern for my humanity?